


Placing Bets

by hypersugarroxy



Series: APHRPW 2k14 [8]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, this didn't have a title at first; can you tell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-07
Updated: 2015-06-07
Packaged: 2018-04-03 05:49:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4089289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hypersugarroxy/pseuds/hypersugarroxy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brigitte knew all about his type. Knew she didn't want anything to do with a witless slacker like Alfred Jones. Their first real meeting did nothing if not pique her interest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Placing Bets

Brigitte sat down in the student union with her coffee and started reading the day’s assigned material. A few other people kept cracking her concentration with their new ping pong rules, which seemed to include slapping the table, the walls, and each other with the paddles.

She thought about leaving. Truthfully, she had a hard time studying in complete silence. Test days drove her crazy for that reason. However, the group of young men (being a term she used lightly) appeared to be going out of their way to be as obnoxious as possible. They wanted to cause a disturbance. Brigitte rolled her eyes. It was all for attention.

She was a subtle as possible in giving it to them, not wanting them to notice, not wanting to encourage them. She kept her nose turned to her book and flicked her bespectacled eyes upward.

Oh. That group was here. She knew it as soon as she caught sight of his face, framed like hers but a world apart in every other way.

She never had to meet Alfred Jones to know him. His reputation preceded him all over the college town. In the bar scene and Bohemian coffee shops, that was a good thing; just about everywhere else, not so much. He was your quintessential “big man”, and he milked it for all it was worth. All of the connections he built since freshman year, he used to his full advantage, and got away with everything he wanted short of armed robbery and murder in the first degree. For example, any other student would have been tossed out of the union for standing on the chair and yelling like that.

Everything she knew about him came from word of mouth and unintentional eavesdropping. Common knowledge about him was he being their star linebacker for that excuse of a game Americans called “football” (though Brigitte and her fellow international students knew better), and that he was a very influential member of a top fraternity order. He had friends in high places, and hands in everything. Even acting the way he has been all through school, it was easy to see he was going places. Someone like Brigitte had to work twice as hard to get half as far as he would.

She returned to her study, a bit surprised at herself. For someone who claimed to not care at all about him, she seemed to have held onto a lot of useless Alfred Jones facts. She spaced a bit, wondering what else she’d held onto.

Rumors had it he was a chronic slacker, but the evidence for that was plain in front of her. Other sources had it that he was a serial dater, in things for the conquest, leaving hearts of any and all genders broken in his wake. That one highly amused Brigitte. She wasn’t entirely sure what the difference was between “playboy” and “womanizer”, but she’d known a self-proclaimed former and the two were nothing alike. While she couldn’t help but notice he had charisma, a romantic he did not appear to be. She figured those rumors were just that. Apparently his reputation even preceded him around her circles.

She chanced a larger glance at the group; two of them were having a sword fight with billiards sticks. One of them elbowed Jones and pointed in Brigitte’s direction. She put her head back to her text. She wasn’t about to become another conquest, rumor or no. Hopefully there was someone behind her and the other kid was pointing at them.

No such luck.

“Hey, cutie,” he said, sitting on the edge of Brigitte’s table. “Bet you five bucks you’ll go out with me.” Alfred punctuated it with a wink. Brigitte slammed her book shut with a smirk, turned to face him and held out her palm.

“I think you’ll find I’m rather good at winning bets.”

He laughed and looked over at his gang, all shoving each other and snickering at him.

“Nah, come on. What do you have to be like that for?”

“You are aware of what they say, right?”

“So an introduction isn’t in order, I assume?”

She tried ignoring him.

“You’re a coffee girl, then?” Brigitte didn’t answer. “Could take you out.”

“Not if you keep paying me for turning you down.”

Alfred put his hands on the table. “That class hard?”

“Changing your tactics isn’t going to change my mind.”

“That’s an accent. Guessing French?”

“Not sure enough to place money on it?”

“You’re killing me here, I just wanted to know if you wanted coffee.”

“That was not the first thing you said.”

“Well, I figured I’d say something, try to catch your interest. Smalls over there said you nearly wiped someone clean in a residence hall poker tourney.”

Even at a school this big, were rumors being spread about Brigitte? Of course, that one was true, but still. She just played how she always did. It wasn’t anything spectacular.

“So you like cards? I’m pretty good at Old Maid. And Go Fish.” Brigitte didn’t even try to hide her amusement. “So, what do you think? How about a game of Old Maid for plans on Friday night?”

She thought for a second. “ _Truc_.”

“Pardon?”

“How about I pick the game and we play a game of _truc_?”

Alfred scratched his head and mused, “I have never heard of that.”

“Classic poker, then.”

“Show me what you did to that kid in Richmond Hall? No thanks.”

“Then no deal.”

Alfred watched her open her textbook again. She watched him out of the corner of her eye, almost hearing the cogs turn in his head.

“Texas Hold ‘Em.”

“What part of ‘poker’ is so difficult to understand?”

He sighed. “Fine. We’ll meet here this time tomorrow? Unless you happen to have cards on you right now?”

Brigitte shook her head. She just came from class (and was actually supposed to be headed for another); why would she? Well, she supposed, he wouldn’t know where she came from.

“You know,” he said, watching her put her things back in her bag, “you might want to consider going out with me anyway.”

“We have a bet. And besides, I know you. I know your type.”

“You know what they say. I’m a broadcast journalism major with a minor in poli-sci - politics in case sports anchoring backfires - and in every one of my classes, they’ll tell you there ain’t nothing like a primary source.” He put up his hands.

“You know,” she said, throwing her bag over her shoulder, “agreeing to meet you here tomorrow is almost like agreeing to a date.”

“In other words you owe me five bucks?”

“Wouldn’t matter. I’ll just win it back later. I’m late for something.”

She wasn’t about to become a new conquest. At least, not without a good fight.

**Author's Note:**

> originally from tumblr. fill for aphrpw 2014.


End file.
